Centimillionaire Traits: 10 Difference Makers

While the mass public loves to focus on billionaires, and I love to study them - there are 10x as many people worth $100M compared to those worth $1B+. We have worked with dozens of centimillionaires one-on-one, done fireside chats with them on staged, helped them set up family offices, and closed deals with many of them.

Here are the things I find in common among the centimillionaires I have worked with and count as friends; by the very nature of this list, these are generally what I see, and like any list, not true for every centimillionaire out there.

Also, it should be noted that the centimillionaires I attract with newsletters like this, books we write, our YouTube channel, and our Family Office Club events are almost entirely 1st gen or early 2nd gen families; we do not attract 3rd and 4th gen families much who are strictly playing the diversification game typically at that point (although they are 100% welcome). So, my observations are warped to founders and entrepreneurs who are centimillionaires.

Centimillionaire Traits:

1. Newton's 1st Law: Founders in motion stay in motion, success breeds success, nothing sells like momentum, and money likes speed. They seemingly never stop moving, thinking, tinkering, improving, and scaling. Every time you speak they have made progress and have 1-3 exciting developments.
2. Preeminent Moves: The smartest and wealthiest founders I know are positioning for great success over the long term. They often do not have a very specific formalized 5 years planning process that they obsess over, and instead think over what would make their domination of a niche inevitable, something my mentor Eben Pagan taught me 15+ years ago. Whether it takes 3, 5, or 10+ years, what position, asset, or move would catapult them forward or, as Jay Abraham would put it, make you preeminent in your space? As McGregor says, he is there to dominate, not to participate.
3. Structure: Typically those wealthy enough to reach this level have a relatively strong preference for legal structures around deals whether it is collateral, equity/debt, royalties, etc. Listening first to them like any ultra-wealthy client is critical.
4. De-Risking the Relationship Transaction: They don't owe their time to anyone typically, so showing them value first, showing them you are not so scarcity-minded that you have to charge money upfront to add any value to them is critical. They are avoiding 99.99% of things coming at them at this point, so you must add genuine value in an authentic way to activate a "shields down" stance to working together. This is not about manipulation, it is not a trick, it is showing you aren't so short on ideas that helping them first means there is no way to work with them.
5. Concise- Speed of Communication: The most powerful calls I have each month aren't the longest; unless we are deep diving on deal origination strategies or choke point opportunities, they are typically 5-12 minute long conversations. The longer calls are typically the ones with those who have more spare time on their hands.
6. Expectations of Excellence: They despise average, boring, mediocre anything - from experiences to team members to partners or live events - most of life is average by definition, they are not and neither are their results. There is a classic saying that the squeaky wheel gets oiled, Joe Polish taught me a twist on it, "the squeaky wheel gets replaced."
7. 1-3 Part Offensive Game: Typically (not always) these families are focusing their energy only 1-3 areas, they may have 30 or 100+ LLCs and K-1s coming in each year but typically their offensive game, where they drive their balance sheet forward themselves is in 1-2 and at most 3 areas. Understand and know these to improve point #4 above.
8. Excitement/Fun/Thrill/Abundance: Their mindset is typically one of engagement and forward progress, related to point #1 their energy goes into things working. They not always but often are high energy, abundant minded and are nimble, quick and bounce back quickly from setbacks. As venture capitalist billionaire Tim Draper said when we interviewed him for our Billionaires.com 100 interview series - run towards things which make your skin tingle, and run away from people who make your hair stand up.
9. Business Risk vs. Debt Risk: Most clients do not put themselves in massive debt or debt risks, if they have a $40M in debt that is because they have $150M in equity on the same real estate assets, they keep relatively low LTV/debt levels compared to equity, and while they may take business risks and at 1-3 critical points leverage it all to acquire something, they are not risking blowing everything up using debt to the extreme in my experience. That is rare. When you only play offense in 1-3 areas you become more effective at guarding your eggs in that 1 basket or couple of baskets as Warren Buffett would say.
10. Internal Locus: Not only do centimillionaires have growth mindsets, but they also have internal locus of control; they do not see things happening to them; they make things happen. These are founders who don't settle for small success, they are very driven, typically love a good % of the work or part of the game, and often their childhood struggles, parents (or lack thereof), or family/childhood background is part of what makes up their drive which cannot be matched. It is nearly impossible to match a driven consistently high performing constantly iterating founder laser-focused on their mission over 15+ years. Publicly traded companies can throw cubicle jockeys at them all day long, and they will swap out jockeys 4x who are all 10% up the learning curve compared to the driven long-term founder. They feel fortunate, but they created their good luck and made things happen to get to where they are.

Also, before any Latin/metric system officiators comment, yes I realize technically the name Centimillionaire doesn't make sense, but centimillionaire is the industry term for those worth over $100M in the finance space.

This is why I enjoyed running our community - every time we host an event we learn many new things, and have an adjusted/expanded view of business.

Family offices are ultra-wealthy families, which pretty much means founders and perhaps the nextgen of a founder, it all comes down to success in business and than how do you re-invest the winnings from that success and protect your family from the downsides of wealth. That is all the family office space is.

At our last investor mastermind we emphasized that if your financial IQ does not raise with your wealth, someone will quickly help you reach that equilibrium in no time. You will lose the money, you see this with pro athletes, lottery winners, and those who sell a company and get wealthy and than not wealthy just as fast.

If you want to raise your financial IQ please subscribe to this newsletter, subscribe to our YouTube Channel which just passed 725,000 subscribers and come get involved in our in-person Family Office Club events.

What have you noticed with your top clients, family offices or centimillionaires on how they operate?